These No-Hassle Flowers are Quietly Replacing Dahlias – They’re Cheap, Bring More Blooms and are Far Easier to Grow
Zinnias are the hassle-free dahlia dupe you and your garden need, and you can sow them in June for fast summer color.
Dahlias are glorious flowers to have in the garden but goodness, they’re quite a faff – and these zinnias look just as fabulous and they couldn’t be easier to grow. Sow zinnias directly in the ground where they’re to grow and in two months’ time, you’ll have drifts of cut-and-come-again blooms that last till the first frost. But the best bit? Whatever type of dahlia you adore, there's a zinnia variety to match. Get cracking now in June, and your garden will be awash with dahlia-like flowers all through September and October.
I’ve been growing dahlias for a decade, as I love to raise my own cut flowers, and I’m gradually switching over to raising zinnias instead. The problem with dahlias is that they grow from tubers – potato-like storage roots – that turn to mush when the ground freezes. So unless you’re prepared to dig up, dry and store those dahlia tubers over winter, then replant them in spring, they won’t survive unless you live in a zone that doesn’t freeze over. But grow dahlias in those warmer zones and you’ll find they don’t cope well with the intense summer heat, and blooming often stalls.
As a self-confessed lazy gardener, I only grow plants that practically look after themselves, and reward me well for minimal effort. And in the early days, when I was still bowled over by the intricate beauty of their blooms, dahlias made the grade. But since I discovered these dahlia-like zinnias that bring double the blooms for a fraction of the faff, I’m making the switch. And honestly, this is a no-brainer, and you should too.
Zinnias are annuals so you simply sow them every year directly where they're to grow, which means you can try out new varieties each year. They’re suitable for all zones, and cope so well with both heat and drought in pots as well as the ground. These fast-growing plants bloom in weeks for quick summer color, and will bring you armfuls of flowers. Surely for the cost of a packet of seeds that's worth trying so you can see for yourself why you be growing zinnias instead of dahlias? Yep, and these are the most dahlia-like zinnias to grow this summer.
1. Best for Pollinators: Zinnia Fruit Smoothie
Dahlias may be beautiful, but most aren't the best blooms for pollinators because their nectar is often inaccessible below tight ruffles of petals. Most zinnias, however, are excellent for pollinators. Fruit Smoothie belongs to the Zinnia elegans clan, which means it has a bushy habit and flowers on long stems, so you get plenty of blooms from a single plant. While flowers still have lots of petals, their open structure means the rich nectar is readily accessed. Grow it and you can expect bees, butterflies and hummingbirds to be regular visitors.
Continuously flowering from mid-summer, as long as you keep deadheading fading blooms, zinnias provide a sustained food source late into the season when many other flowers have gone to seed, too. Fruit Smoothie mixes orange and purple tones, with 3-inch flowers that are particularly heat-tolerant on 3-foot stems. Pinch out the main growing tip – and there are many expert tricks to get more flowers – and you’ll force the plant to grow lots more blooms all summer long to keep your garden pollinators well fed.
2. Best for Huge Blooms: Zinnia Benary’s Giant Mix
Oh my! These vibrant flowers grow to five inches across atop 4-foot-high stems, so you can expect a dazzling display that’ll turn heads. The Benary Giant series includes red, orange, salmon, yellow, purple and lime, and this seed blend includes some of each. Pollinators love them – it's a favorite for monarch butterflies – and you will too.
Although Benary’s Giant is in the Zinnia elegans tribe, it was bred for the commercial cut flower industry so grows up rather than out. Though stems are super-sturdy, it’s best to support plants properly as those huge blooms makes stems top heavy and easily toppled by strong winds or heavy rain. The best way is to push bamboo canes into the ground and create a criss-cross of twine between them, so stems can still move.
3. Best for Cut Flowers: Zinnia Cut-and-Come-Again Mix
Not a specific variety but a commercial blend of cultivars that flower particularly profusely so the more blooms you cut, the more you get. Every time you snip a stem from this Zinnia elegans blend, you encourage side shoots to grow, so the plant grows bushier, with ever-more flower stems. So this is a must-have zinnia mix for a cutting garden.
In a wide range of colors through white, yellow, orange, red and pink, Zinnia Cut-and-Come-Again Mix grows 2-3 feet tall with 2½ inch blooms. These aren’t showstoppers but, as vibrant fillers to pack a vase or bouquet full of blooms, they’re indispensable if you like to grow your own cut flowers.
4. Best for Unusual Blooms: Zinnia Mazurkia
Grow this striking zinnia in your front yard and all your neighbors will want to know what it is! It’s a Zinnia elegans cultivar so you’ll get a bushy plant with bumper numbers of flowers – and oh, what flowers they will be! A vibrant strawberry pink or scarlet at their centre, each bloom has creamy-white or blush petal tips, creating a dazzling bi-color show. As the flowers mature, that lipstick-pink slowly fades to a more pastel tone, leaving you with a lovely mix of hues on each plant.
Zinnia Mazurkia grows to 26-30 inches high, making it a super choice for planters as well as borders.
5. Best for On-Trend Tones: Zinnia Queeny Red Lime
Search ‘zinnia’ on Instagram and so many of the flowers that pop up will be members of the Queeny series. Another Zinnia elegans, this series features striking multi-tonal double flowers, with vintage tones merging beautifully together. All the flowers on one plant typically have a slightly different ratio of the two tones, which creates a wonderful display of color.
There are all sorts of color combinations to choose from in the Queeny series, but Queeny Red Lime is a current favorite. Its petals are a deep maroon red at their base, shifting through pink to a vibrant lime at the bloom’s center. That centre is a deep red, too, so even as the flowerbud is opening, you’ll enjoy a dazzling color contrast. Growing to 3 feet high, this is a vigorous variety so produces plenty of flowers.
6. Best for Beginners: Zinnia Exquisite
There is in fact a dahlia-flowered series of Zinnia elegans, and ‘Exquisite’ is one of its well-known beauties. Double-petalled 3-inch blooms burst open a deep pink then gradually fade to lovely pastel tones, bringing multiple shades on a single plant. All zinnias are so easy to raise from seed, but this heirloom variety is particularly keen to grow so it’s a great place to start your zinnia journey if you're a beginner gardener.
Plants reach 30 inches tall, and pollinators adore the open centers of the flowers, too.
7. Best for Humid Zones: Zinnia Zahara
The only issue with zinnias is they have a tendency to develop powdery mildew. While this can still be a problem with heirloom varieties, most modern series have been bred to have greater disease resistance. Still, some are better than others, and Zahara beats them all. It’s a hybrid of Zinnia elegans and Zinnia angustifolia known as Zinnia marylandica, and is highly resistant to leaf spot, too. So, if you live in a humid zone, this is the zinnia for you.
In striking colors including reds and yellows, the Zahara series typically has 3-inch blooms and grows to a height of 2 feet, making it excellent in a container as well as in the ground. ‘Double Salmon’ is my pick for gloriously saturated color, those dreamy coral petals revealing golden centres as the flowers mature.
8. Best for Containers: Zinnia Starlight Rose
All zinnias are incredible tolerant plants and thrive in a container, but this little beauty is a particularly good zinnia variety to grow in a pot. It's also a Zinnia marylandica and part of the Zahara series, so has excellent disease resistance and drought tolerance. However, its naturally dwarf, bushy growth means it creates a lovely mounding plant in a container. Only reaching 12-18 inches high and wide, it brings pretty star-shaped flowers with bi-color petals.
9. Best for Shape: Zinnia Zinderella Pastels
Zinderella is a fabulous series of Zinnia elegans reminiscent of anemone or collarette dahlias that feature a pincushion-like centre within a flat outer ring of petals. Cultivars in this series are available in wonderfully soft yet strong colors, from peachy pinks to lilac, cream to buttery yellows, with 2½ inch flowers atop 2-foot stems.
The Zinderella Pastels blend is a glorious way to get to know this series, with a mix of tones and frilly centres. You’ll get a mix of blooms through the summer, too, as this tends to grow more floofy, double flowers with a profusion of petals early in the season when temperatures are mild, gradually switching to simpler single flowers as the heat intensifies.
10. Best for Pompom Flowers: Zinnia Oklahoma
If you’re a fan of pompom dahlias, then ‘Oklahoma’ is the zinnia for you. This Zinnia elegans series grows an incredible profusion of perfect, many-petalled 2-inch flowers on 3-3½ foot stems. The plants branch well so keep picking these pretty pompoms and you’ll get lots more blooms. These uniform spheres of tightly-packed petals last a week in a vase, too, and there’s a gorgeous range of tones, though nothing beats the bubblegum ‘Oklahoma Pink’.
